November 01, 2003

More NYC Vietnamese

Not all of us have our own websites nor do all of us necessarily work in the world of design and art. Some of the people I have been meeting over the past year fall into diverse arenas such as non-profit work or engineering, but everyone is Vietnamese and living in NYC. In no particular order:

Wil Cao is the son of my mom's classmate from Vietnam introduced to Hong and I over a year ago. Wil is an engineer at PB World and one of the most avid participants of this Vietnamese madness.
Richard Do is our second cousin on my dad's side and a radiologist at NYU Hospital. If you listen carefully he has a very clever sense of humor.
Lynn Nguyen is one the original people I e-stalked online. I found her through a Nguyen google search which led to me a long time ago published piece of writing she had submitted to a now defunct website. She rocks my world because her sarcastic straightforward humor matches mine.
Hawkins Pham I met through his former career as publicist for my friends' restaurant, Public. Hawkins is definitely the man about town and always manages to turn up in unexpected locations.
Ha Do is my favorite extremely well read and knowledgeable Vietnamese friend and also a graphic design student at SVA. She answered a Craig's List ad that I posted looking for a tutor for Rich. The lessons didn't work out, but Ha has been one of the greatest resources on current artists.
Minh Thu goes back to the summer of 1991 when my cousin Richard and I spent the month at Lang Hong, the Buddhist retreat of Thich Nhat Hanh in the south of France. We met her there and fortunately Richard has been in touch with her ever since, now that she's moved to NYC hopefully we'll see each other more often!
Kim Spurlock arrived via the NYU Film School where Hong's ex-roommate Cary was a student but then it turned out that Kim knew Trac Vu, an old classmate of Hong's from Cornell. Most recently she has been working on short films dealing with ghosts and Vietnamese grandmothers. We love Kim.
Thu Nguyen - I met Thu at a CAVE Gallery opening one night where she had started talking to Stephen Nguyen. In my usual way, I solicited her email and added her to the list of Vietnamese New Yorkers. Originally hailing from Texas, Thu then introduced me to Quincy Tran. Small world, Viets from Texas...
Elicia Berger posted a resume on Craigslist awhile back from which I managed to e-stalk her. Since then she has been not only a frequent attender of events, but also the sole person most responsible for sending referrals this way.
Binh Nguyen is one example of Elicia's fervor - she signed up for the meetup.com meetings, went to the first one where the only other person there was Binh. She then sent him over to us where Rich and I met him at CAVE Gallery one evening. We spent a very funny night together, he cracks me up. Binh has one of those inspiring stories where he left his career and hometown to work for the nonprofit organization, Covenant House. I think he said they make about $20 a week. Crazy dedication!
Tina - nurse, referred through Elicia
Bao Pham - Craig's List ad; listserve on Yahoo
NL Nguyen - NL or Long comes via my good friend Michi's best friend Akiko, circuitous I know! Akiko has long since returned to Japan, but Long remains on in NYC as a friend and design director extraordinaire (or DJ68 as he is known to friends). Long knows the Pham siblings, Thuy, Kai and Hanh from their youth. It's such a small world.
Trinh Nguyen spent a year in Hanoi working on a thesis about cai lung, another friend of Elicia's.
Tuyet Mai
Van Trang was Hong's first Vietnamese friend in NYC. They worked together for awhile before both went on to graduate school.
Ai-Linh
Thuy Q. was orginally sent my way by Hanh Pham but has since gone on to be the organizer for the NYC Vietnamese Language Meetup group. She has a great enthusiasm and dedication to the whole culture of being Viet.

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